Keeping her head down, she left his cell. She had to fumble three times before she could get the door locked again, and then she had to do it all over again with her own cell door.

The beam of light that had been her lifeline flickered and was growing dim. The batteries in the flashlight were running low. She should probably turn it off to conserve the energy. After all, she didn’t know for sure that Anthony was coming back.

At that thought, a flicker of rebellion stirred. There was thriftiness and being smart, and then there was needless paranoia. Justine had ordered him to come back with supplies, which meant he had to return. Leaving the light on, she wrapped herself in her rough blanket and sat in the corner, in the triangle of her little nest.

After that, her mind shut down, and she focused only on immediate necessities. While she tried not to eat her remaining supplies too quickly, once she had made the decision, she couldn’t stop herself and practically inhaled the last of the nuts and the chocolate.

Afterward, she drank the last of her water, sparing only a little at the end to wash away the dried trickle of blood from the cut on her neck and the bite on her forearm. As she checked her wrist, she saw that the tiny puncture wounds had already scabbed over.

The food and water weren’t enough. Her hollowed-out body clamored for more hydration and nutrition. In an effort to stop the discomfort, she pressed a fist into her abdomen, just under her rib cage, and huddled into a ball, but the pressure didn’t help much.

The light had dimmed so that it only illuminated the area of her nest. She could sense Julian in the darkness, silently watching her, but instead of it bothering her, she almost found comfort in his regard.

She didn’t care what he thought of her, and she was glad he remained silent, since usually when he opened his mouth it meant that sooner or later she would get infuriated with him, and she didn’t have the energy for it right now. As long as he could watch her, it meant she wasn’t alone in this horrible place.

Her gaze ran along the edge of the blanket, across the floor and followed the lines of the upended cot. Down, along and over. When she completed a circuit, she began all over again.

Julian’s news had shaken her more than she liked to acknowledge. While she had known, of course, that Justine had jumped the rails, she hadn’t realized just how far the Vampyre had gone.

There was no way that the details of such a significant massacre could be suppressed for long. How many people already knew about it?

Julian, of course, and the team he had taken to Justine’s property, which must have been around ten or fifteen people. Then there was the human forensics team that Julian had sent in to investigate at daybreak. Xavier knew, along with whoever worked for him that he might have told. And probably a few more key people in Evenfall, like Dominic, knew what had happened.

That was too many to keep a secret. So the news of the massacre either had – or would – get out, and then what?

All the other members of the Nightkind council would have to decry what had happened, however they might feel about it in private.

In truth, some of the council members would be frankly indifferent. To them, attendants were inferior creatures, like pets, and no doubt they would view the killings as merely unfortunate, while others, Melly believed, were genuinely decent people, and she didn’t think she was being naive.

But in public, none of them could afford any appearance of acceptance or indifference and hope to retain their seats, or maintain the successes of their businesses and the comfort of their lifestyles. The news of the massacre itself could ruin all of them, not only with the human population, but with the rest of the Elder demesnes as well.

And then what?

Melly’s gaze completed another circuit. She started again.

Justine would be trying to do damage control. Maybe she could put the blame for the massacre on the one person who had gone missing – Julian. But wait, that couldn’t hold, because Julian had been in the public eye virtually the entire time when the murders had occurred.

So Justine might not be able to pin it on him personally, but she might try to pin it on his soldiers, who would have been in the position to carry out such orders.

No, the timing of that wouldn’t sit right. Melly didn’t see how it could. And Justine couldn’t spin the killings as retaliation for what she had tried to do to Xavier, because that would mean she would have to admit to trying to murder a member of the Nightkind government.

She had to be on thin ice with her allies right now. They would not thank her for the increased precariousness of their own positions.

And none of them would consider backing a bid for power from her. Not in the light of current events.

That meant Justine had miscalculated badly. If the Vampyre hadn’t realized that yet, then she would very soon. By her own actions, she would have alienated herself from her allies, and martial law was still in effect throughout the demesne.

She was losing her power base, and she was isolated. That meant she had no anchor, no way to achieve any of her goals, and no reason to hold back from any of her excesses.

It also meant that Melly and Julian were in an even more precarious position than she had at first realized.

Or were they? She chewed a thumbnail.

What it really meant was that the value of Melly’s life had increased, while the value of Julian’s life had gone down. Right now, Julian had value to Justine only if she had the time and the interest to torture him, and Melly was willing to bet that Justine was rapidly running out of both time and interest.

And Julian knew it. That canny wartime general had already parsed the value of his life against the value of Melly’s. He had been so calm earlier when he had argued for Melly to use Anthony to get out, because he already believed he was going to die.

Her gaze snagged on something and stopped running the circuit. She focused on the underside of the cot.

And cocked her head.

Maybe she did have a magic bottle labeled miracles after all.

The thin mattress was meant to rest on a piece of canvas stretched to the rectangular frame and held in place by metal springs that were roughly three-quarters of the length of her little finger.

The width of the metal springs looked like it might be thinner than her broken pieces of hairpin.

Snatching a hairpin piece out of her pocket, she held it to the cot to compare. The springs were thinner. Not by much, but she didn’t need much.

Halle-fucking-lujah.

If she could flatten two of the springs out on one end, she might be able to get the ends into the locks of Julian’s manacles.